Back when and where I cut my teeth, MMORPGs, this term really did not come up often. When you were DM’ing a scene your character had to be there. Since the developers of MMOs never really took us roleplayers in account and there were no real tools that we had to our disposal. As such for us to be there, our avatar and our character would have to be there, to run the story. To set the scene. To animate the bad guys (if any).

Yet in TTRPGs we don’t have to and when we do plop down a DMPC it is usually soon to be featured on /r/rpghorrorstories. To say that the consensus is that DMPCs are bad is an understatement. But it certainly does not have to be! There is a simple list, steps and measures you can take to make sure a DMPC can be a safe implement. Whether to fill out a temporary (or not so temporary) vacancy, a device for exposition or just someone, anyone, that knows revivify and has it prepared.